The Word Of The Day is Florgasm!

To be the best you must know the best and three of floral.days favorite designs have just teamed up to form the super team that is known as Florgasm. The team consists of Ace Berry CFD,TMF, Patience Pickner AIFD, PFCI, and Sandy Schroeck AIFD, PFCI and between all the talent these designers have you would be hard pressed to find any better. What is ‘Florgasm’ you might ask, well luckily the team has that answer! Florgasm is “The feeling of utter joy and delight one experiences when seeing an especially exquisite flower or floral arrangement”. With these three powers combined you will always be able to count on there being exquisite and exciting designs, shows and classes.

Patience Pickner AIFD, PFCI

Sandy Schroeck AIFD, PFCI

Ace Berry CFD, TMF

What do they do while they are not designing? Ace is a floral artist and owner at R. Ace Floral Art and when he isn’t blowing our mind with amazing deign you can find him dancing, rebuilding vintage bicycles, playing with puppies and is the currant shoe champion from the 2014 AIFD Symposium at 14 pairs of shoes due to his sever shoe addiction. Sandy is the owner of Trend and Design Freelance and Consulting Services, a Smithers-Oasis Team Member, UCI Unlimited Containers Sales Rep and Showroom Designer, and the Len Busch Roses Product Development Coordinator and when she has a second to breath from all those amazing opportunities you’ll find her biking, color forecasting and surfing Facebook. Patience as we know from her past Floral.today Featured Designer Interview is a floral artist and owner at The Picket Fence and owns the furniture and home accent decor store, The Other Side Of The Fence, she is a Fitz Design Team Member and a 2014 Mayesh Design Star Finalist (Click this LINK to go see here August Video) but on her off days you’ll find her doing some retail therapy, reading and spending time with her children and family. Floral.today was lucky enough to be able to grasp a quick second with each of the members of Florgasm for some quick questions and here is what they had to say!

In your personal opinion, what is Florgasm?S.Taking time to stop, have fun and appreciate the floral beauty around us. I get excited to see new products and dream up creative ways to use them that make you want them.A. A Florgasm is something you feel deep in your stomach when you see that one flower or arrangement, it’s sheer utter joy!P. Florgasm is a feeling… an emotion… a way of life. It’s not just about loving flowers and living a fulfilling life doing what you LOVE, it’s about the utter joy one feels when working with, looking at, or being around flowers and floral art. It’s about living life to the fullest and spreading your floral passion!

Design By Ace

How did Florgasm come to be?S. Patience said it at a show and it stuck, the momentum started and became Team Florgasm.A. Florgasm come out of left field to be honest. P-money and I were traveling to L.A. for a Teleflora Unit Presidents meeting, we unexpectedly ended up with a 12 hour delay in Denver. We started talking and when floral artists get together the possibilities are endless, and BOOM! Florgasm was born.P. I’ve used the expression Florgasm and Florgasmic to describe flowers many times on stage. Last year while doing a program, there was a motivational speaker, self made millionaire entrepreneur on before me. I found his style to be a little arrogant, but I listened to his story…. After my program he approached me, complimented me and asked me where I got “that wonderful word from”. He was talking about Florgasm, I answered that it’s just part of my vocabulary. He then asked if I owned the domain name, and when I answered no he told me to buy it immediately. Well on the way back to my hotel that night I thought, “he may be a self important guy.. but he’s also a self made millionaire so obviously he knows business”, so I purchased Florgasm immediately. My friend Ace Berry purchased Florgasmic, and with the help of my son in law to be Colin, and lots of collaborative convos and phone calls www.florgasm.com was born. We always knew we wanted a third member who shared out vision of lifting up other florist and giving design programs that were educational, exciting and fun, so when Sandy Schroeck contacted us asking to be part of it all we said welcome aboard!

Design by Patience

What are some of your goals personally with Florgasm?S. Inspire designers to have fun with flowers.A.To publish a book and to do a main stage program at AIFD, and to really share our passion with the floral industry.P. Goals for Florgasm! Number one, spread our passion for flowers to fellow florist and consumers, we would love to fill up our map and be invited to do programs throughout the country. I have a pretty basic theory on life, work hard and play hard. We as an industry need to remember a few things things, we aren’t brain surgeons, we aren’t saving lives, we make pretty things, so if we gain success we need to remember to not take ourselves to seriously or we become that self important guy. Equally important we need to remember that while what we do is probably not saving lives it is art and we are artists and we should never be scared to charge for that artistry! OK, give me a second while I climb off my soap box…. ok, I’m off.P. Something Ace and I have discussed at length is that we want to encourage and mentor those new to the industry, to lift people up, we haven’t decided how to launch it yet but there will be a “Stars To Watch For” sort of section to our website.

UCI Partners Table Designed By Sandy

What part of the industry do you think Florgasm can help improve the most?S. We want to show our passion for flowers and inspire sales. Design shows are not just about who can make the biggest arrangement, how can we add a twist that draws people in and get them excited about buying flowers on a regular basis.A. The thing is no one wants to sit in a program and be lectured, they want to be educated and entertained. To recharge, inspire and help other floral artists rekindle their passion.P. I think an area that Florgasm can benefit our amazing industry is by adding even more enthusiasm and passion, programs are changing. Programs are more interactive, more designed on stage, more hands, they are educational and entertaining and Florgasm wants to lead the way.

Patience Designing

Of all your achievements to date what are some of the most memorable Florgasm moments so far?S. Being part of the “Top This” program at the AIFD National Symposium in Las Vegas.A. Watching people guessing the new member, seeing people from all over the world like our Facebook page and visit our Florgasm website. Also new and old friends reaping our Florgasm tees at the 2014 AIFD National Symposium.P. The buzz regarding the newest member was pretty exciting, but I think the three of us getting together in Chicago was pretty cool. Great networking conversations and spreading our love and passion for flowers. Tons of great memories from the body flower party, drag show, seeing legends and the final night. Seeing our t-shirts on so many new and old friends. It was all awesome. The number of state organizations that have contact us interested in bringing us to their state makes me feel we are on the right track!

Design by Ace

Are there any exciting projects we should be looking forward to for the rest of 2014 and coming 2015 from the Florgasm Team?S. Patience has a daughter getting married and we will be producing that event this fall. We are in negotiations for some other shows in 2015. I will be appearing at Len Busch, Plymouth, MN, Roy Houff October and Frank Adams Wholesale October 12th.A. 2014 has a huge event in September! P-money’s daughter is getting married and team Florgasm is invading SoDak! (South Dakota) To give Chelsea and Colin the wedding they deserve. We are in talks with a couple state organizations about doing programs in 2015.P. My daughters wedding is Sept 5 and Team Florgasm is getting together to do the flowers for it….EXCITING!!! Florgasm is in negotiations with several places for programs in 2015. Personally I’ve got a show with Tim Farrell Sept 13-14 in Sioux Falls, SD at NAWFI which I am super excited about!! The SDFA free fall convention is in October, as acting Prez I’ll be pretty busy with that, I haven’t started booking any spring programs yet, but hopefully that will begin soon!

Bridal Bouquet

What are a few of the services that Florgasm offers and where can our viewers find them?S.www.florgasm.comA.We are down for anything, but most of the programs we offer will be at www.florgasm.com.P. We actually are working on our specialty programs right now, they will be on our website very soon at www.florgasm.com!

Sympathy Design by Patience

Do you have a philosophy when it comes to designing for yourself or for Florgasm?S. I love to use color and product trends to create something for your staff to talk about as a start, then add flowers to connect them and get people excited.A. I really don’t have a philosophy, just smile and have fun, we are in the best industry in the world! Take time to have all the Florgasm you can!! (I totally just made that up…) BOOM! I’m good!P. I am super passionate about floral designing! I am a stickler about color theory, that’s number one for me. I also adore Line, it’s the most exciting of the principles and elements of design for me. As a floral artist I am inspired by the product, I love organic materials and trying new design styles.

Backstage of Sandy’s Show

Where do you see the floral industry heading in the next 10-15 years?S.The market is changing and you need to figure out your niche. In a flower shop you need to diversify. Example, partner with linen companies or other rental companies so you can provided full services. It won’t be enough to just sell flowers, the service will grow your business. Flower shops fail with a lack of willingness to change. One new trend coming from Pinterest will be to figure out how to incorporate the DIY into your business. Teach classes or sell full bunches at a different margin than normal. Many people look at it as the enemy, mostly because we have lost control of their choices. The day of pulling a pre-priced selection guide from under the counter are gone. We will need to adapt or loose the business.A.I really see it more event driven, it’s hard out there for small shops that don’t want to change. There will always be your old school florist out there, but they are a dying breed and it’s getting harder and harder for everyone in the industry. Education is the key for our survival in the industry.P.The industry is defiantly changing, those who view themselves as artists and charge accordingly will succeed, those that don’t simply wont. Continual education and the absolute BEST customer service you can provide will give us the best chance at success!

Ace and Garrett at the 2014 AIFD Symposium Leadership Gala

What inspires you and your design?S. I love line in design, Hitomi has been an inspiration for years, but I am also inspired by Bobbi’s love for flowers and life. Marie’s program “Shine” sticks in my head with the “Each one Touch one” challenge. There are so many more talented designers I’ve had the opportunity to work with, I use my love for education to create designs and to keep challenging myself.A. WOW!! I am a very architectural designer so old buildings, vintage stuff and lots of different things at the moment. I’m very big into floral tattoos! I’m really drawn also in by the urban influence.P. Nature, organic material, the flowers themselves. The funny bend in a liatris, unusual seasonal flowers along with color line and texture. I love the play of hard rigid containers with soft textural product. Music inspires me, what I am listening to at the time (there is ALWAYS music playing in the design room) influences my designs.If you could take Team Florgasm anywhere in the world, were would you go and what would you dream of doing there?S.Chelsea Flower Show in UK, I would love to go take in the inspiration and come back and pass on what we learned.A. Japan or China! Just to see what it’s like to be a floral artist there and to see the Great Wall and Temples, and to experience all the plants and flowers!P. OOoooohh… Good Question! I’ve never traveled outside the USA so I don’t know how to answer that. Amsterdam would be amazing, the Chelsea Flower Show would be mind blowing I am sure and Japanese floral artists are super interesting to me. I would definitely want to learn from the masters of floral design wherever it is that we are lucky enough to travel to!

We here at Floral.today commend those of us in the floral industry that strive to take the floral industry to the next level through education and artistry helping support the backbone that will keep us all around for many years to come. Make sure to check out all the link throughout the article and show your support to all the team members of Florgasm along with all their other activities in the industry! Floral.today looks forward to working alongside and with Team Florgasm in the future as we both strive to share our love for education and beautiful design. Thank you to all three members of Team Florgasm for stopping by for our viewers to get to know them a little bit better and get a better feel of why they need Florgasm at their next show or conference!